


universe we hold

by oldmythologies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Shiro's Fun Year, Soulmate-Pain Sharing, angsty desert Keith, during Kerberos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-12-21 04:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11936397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldmythologies/pseuds/oldmythologies
Summary: "It didn’t feel like Shiro was dead. He still felt real, like Keith could feel him with the tips of his fingers.Keith was never one to ignore instinct."(a sheith soulmate AU)





	1. Denial

Keith jolted awake with a shout, shooting straight up in his bed. He tried to slow his breathing, covering his mouth as his roommates mumbled, the bed above him creaking as she rolled over in her sleep; Keith was eternally grateful that they both slept like the dead.

He didn’t know why he was awake, but god, his head hurt.

He wasn’t unfamiliar with headaches; he’d hit his head plenty of times, even had a concussion once or twice, but he could swear he hadn’t hit his head. Rubbing his scalp where it ached didn’t reveal any particularly sensitive spots, but he hissed at the sensation nonetheless. Maybe this was a migraine? They always said migraines were _different_. Maybe this was what they were talking about.

This didn’t feel like a normal headache. A normal headache wouldn’t send him screaming awake; a normal headache wouldn’t give him images of a purple glow, gunmetal, _red_ , an overwhelming sensation of confusion, and of fear, his heart heavy in his throat and pulsing in massive waves. He felt every single beat.

Huh.

Must be a migraine.

His head throbbed and he leaned forward, pulling up his knees to rest on.

He took a deep breath, counting one, two, three, four in, five, six, seven, eight out. Just like Shiro taught him.

Keith thought about getting painkillers. His first reaction a violent _no_. Then he remembered Shiro, probably making the final descent to Pluto’s moon right now, and convinced himself to roll out of bed.

He decided not to turn on the lights in the bathroom. He didn’t want to make the headache worse, and they always said that light was bad for migraines.

Keith would do absolutely anything in the world to keep his soulmate from hurting.

* * *

The morning was weird. Keith, Claire, and Lyss had a morning routine. Keith always woke up before the morning trumpets, so he got to shower first, then Claire, and if Lyss was able to get up before they had to leave, she would go next. That morning, Keith had been showered and ready to go before Claire even woke up. He sat on his bed, bouncing his heels. He was that restless sort of tired that came with drinking too many energy drinks at two AM. That was a feeling he knew well, but in the morning like this, it was just weird.

Claire blinked at him, rolled her eyes, and got ready. He tried to read. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t think past the ache in his head. He followed his navigator and engineer to class and immediately zoned out.

Keith pressed the balls of his hands into his eyelids. He hadn’t gotten back to sleep that night, despite the painkillers. He couldn’t force his mind to rest, haunted by the eerie purple glow, gunmetal and red that he couldn’t place.

God, his _head_. His teacher was droning on about something that would only end up mattering to the engineers, and Claire, his engineer, had it well in hand. With a quick glance, he caught her furiously taking notes. She had this. She always did. He closed his eyes and laid down on his crossed arms, the teacher’s voice fading into an irritating background hum, like a fly that kept buzzing too close to his ears. He couldn’t figure out what was _wrong_ with him. He felt like his blood sugar was low, but he wasn’t hungry. Dizzy dark spots gathered in his periphery, and the painkillers hadn’t helped his head at all. He felt like he wasn’t in his own body and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out _why_.

If there was any way to get a message to Kerberos, he would apologize to Shiro for being such a mess and bringing Shiro down with him. Sometimes it sucked to know that his soulmate was off changing the world and that every little ache he couldn’t fight hurt him too.

The purple, the gunmetal, the _red_ wouldn’t leave his mind, the real world nothing but a high pitched screech. The space between his ears was filled with nothing, an echo chamber for every little sound that meant nothing to him like this, empty lights, flashes, glints of metals and static and—

 _Shiro_.

Keith jerked up as something collided with his chest.

He gasped, the lecture hall snapping back into focus. There was nothing there, nothing, nothing pressing down on his lungs, forcing the air out of them, keeping him from breathing.

His hands grasped, desperately, at the front of his uniform. Claire gave him a short, worried glance, but returned to her notes. She knew Keith. She knew he could get through it himself; he always did.

Keith breathed. One, two, three, four in, five, six, seven, eight out. Just like Shiro taught him.

His lungs were fine, he hadn’t hit his head, and he wasn’t hungry, but he felt it all like a dull presence at the back of his head, half strength but _there_.

The blank screen behind the professor crackled to life, Iverson’s usual grimace and military stance materializing at the front of the room.

“Students and staff,” he began, gruff as ever, his rattle of a voice stabbing through Keith’s confusion, “emergency assembly in Hall A, immediately. All are required to attend.”

The screen went black.

* * *

 Keith was caught up in the flow of students out of the lecture hall and into the assembly room. He kept his eyes on Claire’s back, blindly following as he was filed to a seat in the middle of the crowd, surrounded by hundreds of confused, bored students, all happy to have a short respite from their classes.

Keith couldn’t pull his heart down out of his throat, no matter how hard he swallowed.

The room filled up and the students were loud, so loud.

A man walked onto the empty stage and a hush immediately fell. Iverson always had that effect.

Someone turned on the mic as Iverson reached the podium and the entire room pulled away from the sharp feedback. The sound struck Keith back, right at his brain, and it was purple, gunmetal, and _red_.

It faded and already, Keith couldn’t see.

Iverson coughed and spoke, his voice echoing off the dull garrison walls.

“We regret to announce that all communication with Kerberos mission Persephone abruptly cut out late last night.”

Keith stopped breathing. He couldn’t breathe, his lung was collapsed, there wasn’t any air left. He felt someone grab his hand but he didn’t know who or why or what was happening. He couldn’t put the pieces together. He stared forward; it was all he could do.

“It is believed that the entire crew perished upon a crash landing. The collision is thought to be due to pilot error.”

_Pilot error._

That didn’t make sense. Shiro was the pilot, wasn’t he? Shiro was the pilot of the Persephone and Shiro didn’t make mistakes. Shiro didn’t make mistakes.

Shiro was the pilot of the Persephone.

_Dead on landing._

That didn’t make sense. That would mean Shiro was dead.

The pieces fell together. The headache, the hunger, the ache, the _red_.

He was lying. Keith went to stand up, to shout at Iverson, to call him out and let him know how wrong he was, that he’d fucking gotten it wrong, call them again, that Keith could still feel Shiro in the tips of his fingers, in his spine and his lungs and in every single beat of his heart, but the hand on his arm tightened.

He couldn’t move if he’d wanted to, even if his body would listen to him and get up and _yell_ at something.

Iverson kept talking but Keith couldn’t hear it; his head was filled with the feedback and the darkness crept further and further into the center of his sight.

Purple, gunmetal, and _red_.

_God, his head hurt._

He blinked and Iverson was gone. He felt eyes on him. They knew. They all knew. Shiro loved to talk and he had told everyone, and they thought that his soulmate was dead.

They didn’t know. No one knew. No one could know.

He threw Claire’s hand off of his arm, ignoring the tears that had somehow made their way down his face.

He jumped up, searching wildly for someone to glare at, but no one glared back. They all looked at him with _pity_ , and _understanding_ , which was so, so much worse.

“He’s not dead,” he shouted, voice so shaky that not even Keith was sure he believed himself. He tried again, quieter,

“He’s not dead.”

No one spoke, no one told him he was wrong, and no one told him to move on. Not yet. They knew what a soulmate meant and they knew that no one that young would ever be able to imagine what it felt like to lose one. They let him yell.

Keith wanted to shove his way out of the crowd, to fight whoever stood in his way, but they refused to give him the satisfaction, parting like the red sea.

And Keith ran.

* * *

 Keith had never been on the roof in the daylight. It was their place, and Shiro loved it at night. The wind whipped his unruly hair back and stung his eyes. That’s where the water came from. The wind was blowing sand into his eyes. That was all.

Just the wind.

The desert stretched out before him, an expanse of dust, barren, save for the dry brush, the cacti that were only a few months from flowering once more, the lizards and snakes and mice that slept in fear of the sun, the rocks and the mesas and the mountain in the distance, and the sun, ruling above it all. Barren except for the life that was everywhere, if you knew where to look. Keith had a hard time seeing it at that moment.

The sun blinded him, the spots at the edge of his vision growing, overtaking, until all he could see was black and the warped colors his brain made up to fill the emptiness.

Purple, gunmetal, and _red_.

The grit in the air scraped his skin, filled his ears, and he stumbled, closing his eyes. They were useless anyway. He turned himself over to the senses that still worked, the smell of dirt and the clean air that only existed this far from civilization, the heat penetrating his uniform, the fabric sticking to his skin, his tongue, heavy in his mouth.

Something hit his head again, softer this time, but Keith refused to wince.

He didn’t have a headache.

His entire body didn’t ache, and his jaw wasn’t sore from clenching his teeth too tight. He wasn’t hungry. He was fine.

Keith tried not to let himself fall to his knees, too blind to go anywhere else. He was fine. He wrapped himself in his own arms. His fingers ran up and down his biceps. No bruises there, no hands that held too tight. His wrists were smooth and unmarked.

He was fine.

His vision cleared as his eyes adjusted to the light.

He was on his knees in the gravel on top of the school. He knew this spot.

The desert stretched out in front of him, barren.

He wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. If he tried, he could pretend he felt nothing at all.

If this was Shiro’s pain, it only filtered to him at half strength.

If it wasn’t Shiro’s pain, if it was just his body’s way to cope…

Keith hated the fact that he was even considering it. They always said that when your soulmate died, your body went numb and cold, but he was everything but numb. He was the point where fire and ice met, the point where glass shattered and chemistry went explosive. He was so far from numb.

They told stories about what happened when your soulmate died. It was supposed to be something violent, something loud only in the fact that it was so completely and entirely awful.

Sometimes, they said, it was like when a window shattered but didn’t quite fall out of the frame. Sometimes, it did fall. Old couples sometimes went together, the trauma of losing a part of themselves tipping them over the edge together.

But Keith wasn’t empty.

He wasn’t splintered.

_He was on fire._

They talked about phantom soul pain. Maybe that’s what this was. The abused, broken circuitry in his brain, his muscles, up and down his spine, firing wildly in the absence of direction.

His skin buzzed with the prick of a needle.

It didn’t feel like a broken nerve. It didn’t feel like Shiro was dead. He still felt real, like Keith could feel him with the tips of his fingers.

Keith was never one to ignore instinct.

 

 


	2. -Memory-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fluffy backstory chapter <3

Keith had been forced to get used to eyes on his back since the first class ranking went up.

These eyes were different. He could tell the second he stepped out of the sim, Lyss and Claire on his heels. They had yet to break the garrison record but were inching closer by the day. He felt the whispers of his classmates, Lyss’ anxious shifting and Claire’s perfect posture at his back; none of them explained the shiver running up his spine.

He looked up.

 _There_.

Keith couldn’t gauge the man’s height from down here, but his posture screamed confidence. It wasn’t quite cockiness, but the line between the two was a fine one. The man caught Keith looking at him from under his dark bangs. He smiled and nodded down, stepping back from the handrail and out of Keith’s view

* * *

 

Keith spun on his heel the second he got out of the massive simulation hall, ready to confront the guy that he just _knew_ would be cocky enough to be leaning against the wall by the door.

He was. He pushed off the second Keith turned.

The man—not quite a man, yet, as Keith could tell by the smooth skin and bright eyes—extended a hand in greeting.

Keith crossed his arms.

“What do you want? Why were you watching me?” Keith was a bit more curt than usual, but not any more so than this guy deserved.

The man laughed, his smile shaky but not ingenuine.

“I figured I should at least meet the cadet who’s probably going to beat my record.”

Keith squinted and looked the other pilot up and down before speaking.

“Takashi Shirogane?”

Takashi pulled his hand away and ran it back through the long dark fringe of his hair, obviously not a regulation haircut.

“Shiro, yeah,” he held his hair out of his face, “and you’re Keith, right?”

Keith didn’t see the need to respond. Shiro obviously knew who he was.

Another awkward laugh and Shiro finally let go of his hair. Keith wasn’t letting down his guard until Shiro told him what he wanted. They always wanted something.

“Well,” he tried. “Just wanted to say hey. And let you know that if you need anything, your friendly neighborhood upperclassman is here to help. Can’t have you breaking my record without being able to take at least some of the credit.”

His smile was quiet and his eyes shined genuine.

Keith had no idea what to do with that, but Shiro left before he could figure it out.

* * *

 

Shiro became a regular presence in Keith’s life after that. No matter how many times Keith glared at him, confused and a bit insulted by the charity, Shiro always had a smile ready for him. He always brought him an extra plate of whatever dessert the garrison had that day. He claimed that he’d gotten in good with the cooking staff sophomore year, that it was no problem.

Shiro would spin away, off to help who knows how many other confused kids, and Keith would watch him go. The second he fell out of sight, Keith would devour whatever Shiro had brought him.

Shiro liked to watch class on the days they got to fly the sims. Keith wondered what sort of power afforded him the ability to do so. He hovered on the second level of the hall and looked down like some sort of smiling God, which in their eyes, he kind of was.

At the garrison, Shiro was at the very least a demigod. He was well liked by teachers and students alike. Yes, he had good grades. He was a good student, and that was part of it, but the rest of the adoration seemed to come from some mixture of jealousy and love. He was kind and he was genuine, a rare combination. Keith was starting to feel it himself.

Shiro was persistent.

Eventually Keith said _thanks_ for a bowl of bread pudding, and Shiro had smiled, responding with an eye roll and a short _finally_.

During the selection process for the Kerberos mission, when Keith could see Shiro’s hands shaking a bit, his usual steady eyes lost in a haze, Keith asked for advice. Shiro beamed, the distracted fog cleared, and he sat down across the table.

It became a regular thing, brief meetings turning into full meals together. They started talking about things other than piloting.

Shiro loved Star Trek and he loved to talk about it. Keith loved to listen. He cursed his traitorous heart, begging it to cease its quickening and to pull the stars back out of his eyes. Shiro would smile and Keith had to remind himself to breathe. Klingon diplomacy should not have made him feel like that.

Shiro liked to ask questions and Keith didn’t like to answer. Despite the way Shiro’s eyes sparkled, Keith couldn’t bring himself to trust him. Not yet.

Miraculously, Shiro was okay with this. Every time Keith clammed up, he saw it and moved right on.

Somewhere along the way, Shiro became Keith’s best friend. Lyss and Claire teased Keith about his new, tall, beautiful boyfriend, and Keith always did his best not to smile.

Eventually Matt plopped down next to Shiro, across the table from Keith, and groaned about the puppy taking away his best friend. Keith had blinked at him, and suddenly, Matt was a part of the conversation.

Keith liked him. He was smart, not overbearing in his kindness in the way that Shiro was, but he was funnier.

Matt met Lyss and they immediately hit it off.

Keith realized that somewhere along the way, he gained not just a friend, but a network of them. Their table was always full at meal times, a beacon of light and sound that Shiro had shared with him. Shiro had forced himself into his life and Keith was, somehow, impossibly, one hundred percent okay with it.

Matt pinched himself once when Lyss said something particularly nerdy. He was disappointed when she didn’t feel it, but it was okay, and funny, and fun. They didn’t have to be soulmates to be in nerd love, he said.

When they were chosen for the Kerberos mission, they all celebrated together. Shiro got a little tipsy and told Keith how much he would miss them, liquor light on his breath, his skin dewy with joy.

Be still, traitorous heart.

It didn’t change much, not yet.

Shiro asked Keith to spar for the first time. Shiro said he needed to be in tip-top shape for space, Keith. For space.

Keith agreed, if only because sparring meant time with Shiro, contact with Shiro, anything he could get with Shiro.

* * *

 

Shiro insisted they start with stretches.

Keith rolled his eyes.

“You don’t get to stretch in a real fight.” Keith had the pulled muscles and bruises to prove it.

“Well,” Shiro started, reaching down and somehow absurdly laying down his forearm flat on the foam training mat, “we can all pull our muscles then, okay?”

He turned his head and gave Keith an upside-down grin.

Keith complied.

Once they were all nice and loose, as determined by Shiro, Shiro bowed.

“What is this?” Keith asked.

“Tradition.”

Shiro struck.

Keith was fast and danced out of the way, laughing. It became a game between the two of them, more of a dance than a fight, neither able to land a hit. They were nothing but streaks of energy, passing each other in bursts and blows.

Shiro lashed out right. Keith dodged, jumping in rhythm with their waltz, but this time, something was in the way.

The moment Keith fell was in slow motion, giving time for Shiro’s smile to burn into his memory. It was that moment, getting beaten in a play fight by someone who would never in his life hurt him, that Keith realized he was in love.

And then he fell on his ass and out of it.

Keith was ready to stand up, to brush off his bruised behind and try again, but something in Shiro’s face stopped him. Keith expected a hand, outstretched to help him up, but Shiro was frozen, eyes wide and mouth agape, clawing for air, for the words to say.

Keith blinked.

“Shiro?”

He expected Shiro to shake his head, snap out of it, and make some joke about not being able to believe that Keith had been so gosh darn easy to beat.

He didn’t expect Shiro to fall to his knees and stare at him, scanning his face, his eyes, his lips, for a sign of something. Keith shifted under Shiro’s gaze, turning his head to glare up with a question.

Shiro shot his arm out in front of Keith. Keith noticed how badly his hands were shaking.

“Pinch me,” Shiro whispered.

“What?!”

“Keith,” he paused, giving Keith time to search his face and find nothing but love, eyes that drank him in without doubt, “trust me.”

Of course.

He reached forward, and his hands were shaking now, too. He found Shiro’s hair standing on end, hovering above the skin.

And he pinched.

And he _felt it_.

Keith almost jumped back. His face, he was sure, mirrored Shiro’s own, eyes frozen wide and mouth agape, clawing for words.

Keith forgot how to breathe. Shiro was the first to break.

It wasn’t quite a cry but it wasn’t a laugh either. His face splintered with his smile, another one that Keith was sure to remember. Keith felt his own face pull at the edges, a feeling that might have been odd and uncomfortable a few months ago, but being with Shiro had made it familiar. They leaned into each other, eyes wet and laughter filling their lungs.

Shiro was happy, Shiro was smiling, holding him, touching him, grinning like an idiot, letting the tears roll freely down his cheeks.

Shiro was happy.

Shiro was his soulmate.

Keith was crying too, and he thought it was because he was happy too. Their laughs, their tears, gained a physical presence, the weight welcome on their skin because in that moment, it was a weight they got to carry, to feel, together.

Shiro leaned forward, his forehead held against Keith’s. Keith could feel it twice over.

Shiro’s eyes glistened, silver and dilated and only inches from Keith’s own.

They were breathing the same air, and it smelled like sweat, salty and heavy, like toothpaste and the chocolate cake they’d fought over at dinner.

Keith was so completely engrossed in the moment that he didn’t notice the laughter fade, didn’t notice himself going in to finally feel Shiro’s lips against his own, to see what he tasted like.

He did notice Shiro pull back, forehead still held against his and hands holding the back of his head, but mouth angled away. Shiro withdrew, slowly, as if parts of him were glued to Keith and he had to unstick them, one by one.

“We can’t.”

Keith’s heart broke, the years of insecurity, the knowledge that his soulmate didn’t love him, didn’t want him, hit him like a hammer. Judging by the look on Shiro’s face, he saw it. Shiro’s hand darted out and grabbed his own, squeezing just hard enough to remind him that Shiro was right there and he could feel the grip too. Keith let it comfort him, to tell him that no, his soulmate was not leaving him. Shiro would never.

“I leave for Kerberos in six months, and when I get back, we’ll have all the time in the world together, okay? I don’t want to—“

He paused, working his jaw and collecting his words.

“Once I fall into this, with you, I know I won’t be able to ever get back out. Let me live my dream first, and then we can figure it out.”

Keith tried to hide his disappointment, but as always, Shiro saw right through.

He fell forward once more, letting the weight of his head fall onto Keith’s. He closed his eyes and breathed.

“Two years, that’s it.”

Keith nodded, Shiro’s head moving with him.

“Two years,” he repeated, “that’s it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the amazing response last chapter! I'm super excited to start sharing this story with you all. I am in college and crazy busy right now, which is not aided by the fact that I [opened up for commissions for the first time ever!](http://oldmythos.tumblr.com/post/164847997585/as-many-of-you-may-know-i-am-in-college-as-all) I'll try my best to keep this story on schedule, but make sure to yell on me on tumblr [@oldmythos](http://oldmythos.tumblr.com)
> 
> Special thanks to Aurum, Brook, and Val for the proofreading <3


	3. Anger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been neglecting this for so long! I promise, I'm back <3

The desert out here had seemed dead, when Keith first got to the garrison. He looked out over the entire world in front of him and could only see sand, the things that weren’t. There were no trees, no grass, nothing. Just dry earth and emptiness, rocks and heat that nothing could survive.

It was Shiro who made him see it: the way the sun bounced off the stones, the green underneath the cactus’ spines, the trails in the sand showing that something something was alive. It was Shiro who took him up here, who showed him the setting sun on the edges of the mountain. It was falling, now, hints of warm glow fading in at the edge of the horizon, casting the landscape in shadows.

This was the best time to get to the roof, right before everything went red. It wasn’t pretty unless you got to see the change, Shiro always said. Keith felt something hit his head again and he blinked against the sudden stars in his vision. He didn’t even bother looking. That wasn’t his pain, it couldn’t be.

He wasn’t allowed to hurt, not while Shiro was still alive.

He pulled in a solid breath, deep in his lungs, and let it pulls his shoulders back. He brushed the back of his hands over his cheek and looked down at his own tears with scorn. They reflected the sky back at him, red now.

What was he doing, crying on a rooftop like a child?

Shiro would hate this. He’d be the one to walk up behind him, careful to make sure the crunch of gravel announced his presence, sit down next to Keith, and pull him out. He’d tell some inspiring story he’d probably gotten from a young adult novel, wrap an arm around Keith’s shoulders, and remind him why everything would be better in the morning.

Everything would not be better in the morning. Keith kept replaying the speech in his head.

_Pilot error._

“Bullshit,” he said aloud, spitting the word at the sun, his companion.

He rolled the spite on his tongue and loved the taste. They weren’t even _looking_. _No one_ was looking.

His hands opened and he let the gravel fall away. He could see the stars behind the veil of day.

This was Shiro’s favorite part. He knew the constellations before they could even reveal themselves and was all too happy to point them out as they faded into view.

This was where Keith had fallen in love with him. Before all the soulmate stuff, before he knew what it meant, he listened to Shiro list off star names and tell the stories written in the sky. He’d listen as Shiro absorbed every inch of night and used it in his own glow, pointing out every planet. His excitement wasn’t exclusive to the sky, and he loved how the desert came alive at night. He’d scurry over to the edge of the roof, tilt his head for Keith to join him, and show him all the little creatures pulling themselves to life.

Shiro loved everything with everything he had. Keith remembered thinking it must have been exhausting.

The sun was gone.

* * *

The hall lights had already been cut out when Keith made his way off of the roof. After dark was normally alive with sneaking cadets, but tonight it was silent. Keith’s footsteps echoed off of the empty walls and aching corridors, off of locked doors and hollow chambers.

The low yellow safety lights were worse than nothing; Keith could still see the posters. Every couple of feet, Shiro stared back at him. Almost every one said something else: reach for the stars, follow your dreams, believe in the future. All things that Shiro would un-ironically say without blinking.

 _Believe in Kerberos_.

That one made him stop. Shiro stared back at him through the glossy paper. It looked nothing like him. They’d photoshopped something about his smile, pulled out that little bashful quirk at one corner and, combined with the blooming ache in Keith’s ribs, it made Keith tremble.

Not even the garrison believed in Kerberos. They just decided that Shiro was dead, that he’d made a mistake and taken Matt and Sam with him.

_Believe in Kerberos._

Bullshit.

Keith tried to get his feet to move, to stop looking at his dumb wrong smile. His hands had a different idea and he felt himself ripping the poster off the wall, crushing it between his palms; he wasn’t sure if it was him moving or someone completely different. There was someone else living in his body and he just watched through a heavy haze.

It was someone else, hitting the pad to open his door with enough force to shake the wall. He stomped into his dorm and felt eyes on him.

They were both sitting on Lyss’ bed, eyes red ringed and facing each other.

“Keith,” Lyss began.

“Don’t.” Keith said.

She moved to stand up and Keith took a step back. She froze in place, hand extended, and Keith kept his eyes glued to the texture of the carpet. She pulled back and Keith relaxed.

“I’m sorry, Keith. I know—“

“You don’t know shit,” he said, “no one does.”

He tried to keep the venom out of his voice but it was no use. Every part of him was dripping with poison. It wasn’t Lyss’ fault, it wasn’t Claire’s fault, but everything still felt so wrong and it _hurt_.

Lyss bit down on her lip. Keith wasn’t looking, but he knew her well enough to be sure.

He didn’t wait for her to find something else to say. He turned to his bed, dropping the ruined poster he forgot he’d been holding.

* * *

Something slammed into his chest. It pushed him back and suddenly he couldn’t breathe, waves of energy pulsing through his body. It crackled all the way down to his fingers, arcing between them. Rocks hit his back and dust filled his lungs.

Keith spun around, searching, coughing. The black was being colored by an angry god, splashes of red accented by flashes of light. His ears rang with the shouts of an unseen crowd.

The energy hit him again and he fell, warring with the part of him that told him to feel nothing. Something poked at his lung and Keith looked down to see a purple chest, blooming with bruises as his ribs cracked one by one. Stuck in the darkness, he felt his hands curl.

He screamed. No, he was silent.

He heard Shiro scream. Keith didn’t know who it was at first, not until the shouts died down and he could focus on Shiro’s whispered pleading in-between every little noise that made Keith’s skin want to crawl away.

Keith’s pain faded to an itch, but Shiro kept screaming.

* * *

Keith had some experience waking up from nightmares, but it wasn’t the sudden, gasping thing he always saw in movies. It was little things that pulled him back. His roommates shuffling around, the sound of rain, someone singing next door.

Keith has trouble latching on to what was real when there was a very real pressure on his chest. Every breath, he was convinced that his lung would pop, and then he would breathe, and it didn’t hurt at all. He stared at the wall in front of him and breathed like it was a science. In and out. Simple. It didn’t hurt to breathe, but he held the pain of breathing.

_Pilot error._

Bullshit; Shiro was out there and he was breathing and _it hurt_.

He groaned and tried to stretch, reminded that he had fallen into bed without changing. The heavy fabrics stuck to his skin. He tossed over in bed, putting him face to face with his alarm clock. The red numbers blinked at him through the dark.

3:43 AM.

Lit up by the soft red glow, something else was on his nightstand. Blinking away the sleep, Keith sat up, careful not to jostle Claire above him. Underneath the alarm clock, someone had taken the poster he’d left on the floor and smoothed it out. Shiro smiled up at him, his dumb face alight with something genuine and something quintessentially Shiro: joy and hope and determination and confidence and love all wrapped up in one.

 _Believe in Kerberos_ , it said.

_Believe in Kerberos._

Keith did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter [@oldmythos](https://twitter.com/oldmythos)
> 
> tumblr [@oldmythos](http://oldmythos.tumblr.com)
> 
> I have a kofi too, if the spirit moves you to support me and my sheithy endeavours. Thank you so much for reading! (◠﹏◠✿)


End file.
